


Shimmers

by arem, rm (arem)



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/arem, https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/rm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the oldest of the nights under Arthur, Bors and Dagonet try to keep a certain sort of order especially as Arthur grows into his own.  Tristan and Lancelot, however, present problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delgaserasca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delgaserasca/gifts).



> I struggled a little bit with the unclear and inconsistent canon in the film and with trying to figure out the ages of the knights, so I just made a choice and ran with it; and hope that I didn't overtly contradict anything as opposed to just muddying it further. I love this film (in spite of itself), but have never much spent time on Tristan or Dagonet before and had great fun discovering them for this. Thanks for the cool challenge.

They thought Tristan was slow as a boy or scarred from the journey, when he first came from the East with Lancelot, Galahad and Gawain. Most boys – the other boys – were eager to play at swords, but Tristan just wanted to pick moss off stones in the courtyard wall, smashing it between his fingers and smearing it on his tongue.

While Bors and Dagonet, older but still ungainly, would clumsily chase birds for their dinner, Tristan would make a clicking sound from the back of us throat until the creatures hopped into is hands so that he could snap their necks with fine fingers, before handing them to his older fellows.

“Women cook,” he'd said the first time, his voice thick with the language of his father he was clearly refused to give up.

Bors had laughed and clapped him on the back so hard at that, that Tristan had near fallen over. Galahad laughed so hard he fell over himself. Lancelot had just smirked unkindly, while Dag had simply watched, thinking the matter boded ill.

Bors tried to draw the boy out, possibly because he was bored; Britain was cold and not much to look at, like the most women he could afford; he thanked its plains and inadequate mountains often enough that Vanora fancied him.

Anything Tristan did that was peculiar, Bors would ask why he did it, while Lancelot would make snide comments and Gawain would try affably to change the topic. Dagonet watched, certain that Tristan's first serious fight would come not against an enemy, but against Lancelot.

*

It was not a matter he expected to go well and so he felt slightly stupid instead when he discovered the boys kissing, half-buried in hay. He'd hauled a spluttering Lancelot up by the collar of his tunic.

“Bad choice,” he'd said.

“But --”

“Don't care. You and Tristan, you're both on the same side, right?”

Tristan had nodded from down in the hay while Lancelot glared.

“You ever get on good with a girl once you've gone and got distracted?” Dag asked.

“No,” Lancelot said, as smug as a boy with just fourteen years could get.

“Right. So, you and Tristan already don't much like each other. This sort of thing going to make it better?”

“No,” Lancelot said more sullenly now.

“Good,” Dag said, maybe too brightly. “Leave him alone then,” he said and shoved Lancelot until he ran off to trouble elsewhere.

“I'm not mad at you,” he said, looking down at Tristan. “There's no shame in it.”

But Tristan flushed red and grunted, before levering himself out of the hay disappearing for three days, during which all Lancelot would do was practice, a sword in each hand.

Bors told Dag he was surprised the boy didn't tip over.

*

Tristan came back with two baby hawks and hissed at Lancelot when he tried to make fun. Dag told everyone to leave the hawks alone and Gawain tried to learn how Tristan thought he could make them work.

When the first one died three months later, Tristan took coin Galahad was near sure he'd stolen from Lancelot and paid to lie in a girl's bed as she cut and inked the right side of his face with feathers.

“I think it looks like a tear,” Lancelot said.

“It's more impressive than your scraggly attempt at a beard,” Bors said. No one felt the need to add anything after that.

*

When Arthur, too young, too green, and too fascinating to Lancelot, came back to Britain's soil, Tristan promptly used the occasion to disappear again after Arthur had asked an inane question about whether the marks on his face had anything to do with some sort of religious practice. Bors had rolled his eyes and told Dagonet he blamed Rome.

It took weeks for Tristan to return. Lancelot kept saying he'd joined the Woads, until Arthur finally smacked him onto the ground with the flat of his sword for it in front of everyone. For a few days it had been the hard work of training not to comment on how clearly that had seemed to win the young man's loyalty.

When Tristan did come back, he demanded everyone follow him into the woods, and Arthur, for whatever reason went along with it, declaring it a hunting trip and an excuse to see the skills it was clear the other men had been to lazy to respect, use or yield to.

They caught a boar and brought it back for feasting, Arthur walking alongside Tristan, his hand on his shoulder. Somewhere in their celebrations back at the fortifications, Arthur had stood to declare that they were all brothers. Dag thought he should think less of the speech than he did, but he looked around the room at the other men – knights now, Arthur had said too – and saw their eyes shining both with wine and belief.

So he was not much surprised when three days later, Tristan's face had more feathers, rimmed red for the moment from the blood of it. Another four months, and it was equally unsurprisingly clear that Bors's Vanora had their second was on his way. By the end of the year in the cold and the dark, Dagonet was also sure Lancelot was sleeping in Arthur's bed.

*

“You say we're all brothers, yes?” Dag asked, feeling it was best to check.

“You know that I do,” Arthur said.

“Then I have something to say to you. As a brother. And you won't hear it from me again.”

Arthur nodded slowly and Dagonet took it as permission and sat.

“You have my loyalty, Arthur. All of ours. But if I were you, I would remember that sometimes Lancelot and Tristan are each like one half of a decent man. They shimmer like river stones, I know. They're opaque that way too. If any of us ever betray you; it'll be one of them. Tristan because he's made of moss and birds; you're a man and don't much concern him. And Lancelot because he's just want. Me and Bors? Gawain and Galahad? We're just soldiers --”

“I value you for it no less,” Arthur interjected.

“No. You don't. No more either. And that's good too. But I think maybe you spent all your time in Rome yearning for this strange place, thinking it's yours. It's not. Not ours at all. Maybe theirs. Be careful your heart doesn't see you buried under water.”

“Like the river stones,” Arthur said softly.

Dag nodded.

“I hadn't taken you as one for poetry.”

“That's why I don't talk so much.”


End file.
